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From: "John W. M. Stevens" <john@betelgeuse.us>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 09:08:48 -0700
To: James Buchanan <jamesbuch@iprimus.com.au>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: SMP-Linux
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On Tue, Feb 11, 2003 at 02:36:48AM +1100, James Buchanan wrote:
> Is it possible to design a SMP-Linux kernel with architecture
> independent SMP support, for example, like the VFS provides an
> interface to specific filesystems, the "VSMP" can provide an
> architecture independent way to support SMP?

Why stop there?  Why not make a complete hardware abstraction layer?

Oh, by the way, I have two words for you:

DUCK!

:-)

> There can be a function
> that does the spinlock stuff and underneath is a machine dependent
> implementation (this is already done for x86, what about other MP
> capable architectures?), and same for the scheduler.  Lots of other
> stuff like TLB issues and so on would have to be taken care of as
> well.  I'm no expert on SMP so I don't really know if a "virtual" SMP
> support is possible in the way I am describing it.

What you are describing sounds very much like a Virtual Machine.

Been there, done that, and it does have some benefits.

Good Luck,
John S.
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